We arrived on Wednesday to a pitch black (at half 6) and rather deserted, dusty, and frankly almost biblical looking San Pedro.. After a bit of difficulty finding our way to the hostel, with minimal street lighting and hardly any road signs, we settled in for the night to prepare for some serious tourist action the following days.
Yesterday we arranged some tours and went to the Moon Valley and Death Valley that afternoon. We saw the most awesome views as the sun was setting from the top of this ridge like between-a-hill-and-a-mountain-thing. Volcanoes topped with snow on one side, immense sand dunes and bizarre rock formations like stegasauruses and coloseums all around, a peak at the Atacama sal flats in the distance, and the sun turning one part of the Andes entirely red as it went down... Apart from the other tourists we saw no other evidence of life. It was astonishing.
Today we got up at 4am and were picked up by our next tour guide to start a 2 hour journey to the Tatio geysers. I knew there would be some altitude involved but I didn't realise it was 4300m above sea level, which means 45% less oxygen. We suffered shortness of breath, physical weakness, and some nausea, but I'm just so grateful it wasn't any worse than that, seeing as we'll be at that altitude and just above for our jeep tour to Uyuni, Bolivia starting on Monday.
We arrived at the geysers at about 6, and after some explanations and photo ops had breakfast, including eggs boiled in the geysers themselves. Then, as the sun was coming out, we headed to a thermal pool thingy where we very bravely stripped down and took a dip in the waters! Getting dressed afterwards was definitely not fun though... When we arrived at the geysers it was -6 degrees celsius, and the sun had only just come up so it wasn't vastly warmer when we came out wet and in our swimsuits!
We visited some wetlands and a small village called Machuca where we tried llama and also had a photo with a baby llama of just under 2 months (in that order, otherwise the guilt would have been unreal...!), before heading back to the hostel at noon. A pretty insane morning!
Isabelle has arrived this evening and Daisy and her friend Rachel are joining us tomorrow, so we'll be 6 for the weekend.
It's all rather insane and deserty and overwhelming and awesome.. I had seen some photos before coming here (although have avoided too much research for fear of spoling surprises for myself) but there really is nothing like being here I think. It's quite astonishing.
Keep you posted... XO
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